Tech Career Skills: Interviewing Developers

1h 18mIntermediate2019-12-05

Authors

Billy Hollis

Designer, Developer, Author, Speaker

Course details

Hiring a new developer is a huge investment for any team. But determining whether a candidate has both the right attitude and technical background requires an interviewer with programming skills of their own. This is where you come in. In this course, Billy Hollis shows developers and development managers how to prepare for and conduct interviews to accurately assess a candidate's technical aptitude and overall fit. Discover what to do before the interview to ensure you're prepared and warmed up; which questions to ask to assess a potential hire's enthusiasm for their work, as well as the depth of their technical skills; and how to listen and keep the interview on track.

Learning objectives
Preparing a list of questions
Analyzing the resume and cover letter
Decoding overly wordy resumes
Assessing a candidate's technical skills
Offering advice to an unsuccessful candidate
Setting expectations for next steps
Enhancing your listening skills
Interviewing as a team

Skills covered

Hiring and InterviewingTech Career SkillsJob SearchingCareer DevelopmentPersonaHuman ResourcesCybersecurityCloud ComputingData ScienceSoftware Development

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Technical interviews
02 - Prepared interviewing yields better results
03 - Techniques, questions to ask, and follow-up

1. Preparing to Interview a Developer

04 - Technical skills and soft skills
05 - Have a list of questions ready to use
06 - Request sample code
07 - Analyze the resume and cover letter
08 - Alphabet soup and why they cook it
09 - Neutral vocal tone and body language
10 - Warm up for a good candidate

2. Getting to Know a Candidate

11 - My list of questions
12 - Think back to a system from five years ago
13 - The alphabet soup on a resume
14 - The weirdest bug you've ever encountered
15 - Drill down on object orientation
16 - Hypothetical app needs
17 - Dinner with an industry luminary

3. Assessing a Candidate's Knowledge

18 - Deeper questions
19 - What's your philosophy of user interface design
20 - Comparing platforms
21 - Pros and cons of agile methodologies
22 - How do you become familiar with new technologies
23 - Questions about n-tier architectures
24 - No-win situations
25 - Team work and individual work
26 - User experience

4. Beyond the Interview Questions

27 - Let the candidate ask questions
28 - When a candidate isn't a good fit
29 - Offer advice to an unsuccessful candidate
30 - Set expectations for what happens next
31 - Write down impressions immediately
32 - Reference checking

5. Tips for Interviewing

33 - First impressions
34 - Listen more than you talk
35 - Work on your listening skills
36 - Additional listening tips
37 - Steer the interview
38 - Avoid too much socializing
39 - Business focus or technology focus
40 - Taking notes
41 - Interviewing as a team

Conclusion

42 - Next steps